


Just Harry

by Phoenix5680



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood, School, Young Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24234145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix5680/pseuds/Phoenix5680
Summary: Harry Potter, is an ordinary boy as far as he knows. Ordinary, with a hint of strange. He is an innocent young boy, struggling through Primary School. Battling through dreams of where his parents may have come from.
Kudos: 7





	1. Another Day

Harry heard the sound of footsteps echoing from the stairs above his measly cupboard. Swiftly, he threw himself out of bed in time to hear the;

“Are you up, boy? Don’t loiter, get the coffee going!” This was a usual way of greeting from his aunt, with her sharp tone lingering in the air as she brushed past the cupboard and went into the kitchen. Swiftly, Harry put on his usual bleak school uniform, several sizes too large as they belonged to his cousin, Dudley. He shuffled his feet into a pair of worn black shoes that really needed replacing and checked his appearance. It would have to do.

“Where are you boy!” a gruff voice came echoing down the corridor from the kitchen. This time it was his uncle, Vernon Dursley who worked at a company called Grunnings who did something to do with drills, but Harry wasn’t sure what and didn’t care enough to ask.

Over half an hour later, Harry grabbed his bag and stepped out of the door. He had burnt the toast and put too much milk in his uncle’s coffee, and was already running late for school. Slamming the door to a shout of fury inside he skidded away. As he stepped out onto the smooth grey pavement, his cousin Dudley stepped out with his gang. Dudley; the leader of gang stood in the centre with his arms folded, eyes gleaming with intent.

“Aren’t you useless, Potter?” Piers Polkiss sneered. Piers stepped forwards and looked Harry up and down with dislike. Embarrassed that his lecture from his Aunt and Uncle had been listened to, he paused. This was too long. Piers took a step forwards and tried to grab Harry. But Harry wasn’t scrawny for nothing and jumped back quickly.

“Not as much as you,” Harry retorted; and ran. His quick legs carried him past the gang easily and he whizzed past other students making their way into school, aware of the gang trailing behind him. Once he reached the dull iron gate he slowed to a walk, being certain he had lost them. Above his head loomed the tall blue sign that read; ‘St. Grogory’s Primary School’ with a couple of letters beginning to peel off. Harry was never sure why they put the sign up so high as it seemed impossible to reach to repair it, and it really needed repairing after having been battered with water balloons and footballs and rain.

“Learn to watch where you are going, Mr Potter. You can’t always carelessly swerve around corners. One day you will hit something,” a voice in front of him spoke scornfully. Harry quickly looked up to see the smart teaching attire of Mr Gullivan, his old teacher.

“Sorry, sir,” Harry muttered timidly, stepping to the side and bowing his head in shame. In all honesty, Harry had almost crashed into people and things numerous times during his journey, but for some reason they would always jump out of the way in bizarre ways as though they had never been there in the first place. But now wasn’t the time to reflect upon the strange hasty journey he made to school every morning. There were five minutes to go before the bell, and Harry needed to get to his Year 4 classroom before Dudley and his gang turned up, exhausted from the cat and mouse chase. Or cats and mouse chase, Harry corrected his thoughts. Fortunately for him, Harry didn’t share a class with Dudley. This had been specially requested by Vernon from Reception class, as Harry would have ‘hindered Dudley’s learning’. And Harry wasn’t one to state the fact that for one; Dudley had so little brains he had nothing to be hindered from, and two; Dudley spent so much time joking and chatting to his gang in class, Harry really wouldn’t have been much of a problem. But either way, it meant peace for Harry, even if no one spoke to him in school. He had no friends as everyone was afraid of Dudley’s gang, and even the teachers thought him a nuisance. He wasn’t particularly intelligent, and despite being nimble he didn’t join any school teams for sports. Lost in thought, he entered the building.


	2. Useless Potter

Harry settled down to do some work. His classmates all avoided him like fire, and there was an odd ring of empty seats circling him. It was the second lesson of the day now. He had humiliated himself massively in English, and now he was struggling foolishly with some maths. His thoughts had meanwhile turned to an odd encounter of a man in a cloak who seemed to know his name in the shops, a few days prior.

“Potter! Away with the fairies are we?” Harry jerked his head up suddenly. His teacher was gazing intently at him, and all of his classmates had their hands over their mouths; stifling laughter.

“S...sir?” Harry stuttered, bewildered. The teacher sighed and walked around his desk to stand in front of Harry. Harry leant back to take in the full height of the teacher. His jet black hair fell out of his eyes where it had been messily sat and his worried green eyes stared up at his teacher.

“I asked you a question, Harry. What is 21 multiplied by 35?”

Harry looked down quickly in surprise. He hadn’t been paying attention to anything in the lesson and hadn’t managed to write the questions down.

“I don’t know, sir.” Harry said quietly. This was a phrase he used all of the time. Sometimes even if he did know the answer; this was the easier way to go, to avoid embarrassment on his behalf. The teacher, whose name was Mr Hamilton, shook his head and went to sit back at his desk. Harry lowered his eyes as the lesson began, hearing constant whispers of “Potter is useless,” and “useless Potter”.

As Harry stepped into the playground, all he could hear was the echoes of these thoughts swirling around his head like a black fog. He tried to push them away, but it was true. He was useless. He couldn’t cook breakfast without it burning, he couldn’t do maths, he couldn’t do English, he was absolutely horrifying at French and he hardly knew the history of his family, let alone the rest of the world. Harry tried recalling his parents faces as he sat in his usual playground spot, behind the dustbin. But he couldn’t even remember the colours of their hair, let alone what they looked like. There were no pictures of them at his uncle’s house, and the only memory of them he had was his aunt telling him they died in a car crash. And Harry was an average boy, so he couldn’t imagine his parents having been very exciting. Although sometimes he liked to imagine that his parents were detectives, who died in a car crash when racing to arrest someone. Or something. Harry stared at a spider that was crawling on the floor, next to the muddy black bin. He was used to spiders as there were many in the cupboard he slept in, and he decided that maybe this one could be his friend. He’d name it… something traditional. Like Sam. Or maybe Charles. What about Frederick? James. James the spider. But as soon as he had named this new friend; CRASH. The bin toppled over, squashing his friend flat. Harry looked up to see the pig-like face of Dudley, leaning over, grinning madly.

“Look who it is! Useless Potter!” Dudley jeered. Harry got to his feet quickly and stepped back into the corner. Immediately, Harry began being pelted with rocks and stones and sticks and whatever else Dudley’s gang had managed to get their hands on. This went on for the remaining ten minutes of play, as no teacher wanted to get in the way of Dudley’s gang, and no pupil ever wanted to disagree for fear of being the next target. Harry just crouched down on the floor, trying to make himself a small target. Suddenly, a foot appeared from nowhere and struck him in the head, knocking him down. Miraculously the bell then went and Harry lay on the floor, fighting back tears while in pain. Eventually he got up as it began to rain and started making his way back inside.

“Speed up, Potter. Get in!” a teacher snapped, but Harry wasn’t looking. Every ounce of him ached and he couldn’t wait to get out of school later. Couldn't wait to go from one hell to the next. Every day until he was an adult. As he took his seat back in his classroom, he dreamed of something whisking him away, far away from here. Far, far away...


End file.
